Now, let's open our Bibles to
the book of Luke chapter 17. Let's get right to the Word of
God this morning. I want to read a passage here
beginning at verse 11. And the title of the message
is, Giving Glory to God. Giving Glory to God. So just
like I said in our Bible study earlier, I'm not going to be
bringing anything new. Hope that's a comfort to you,
because anything new is certainly not the Word of God, not worth
saying. But we're going to talk about this giving glory to God
from this passage in Luke 17, verse 11. It says, And it came
to pass, as he, that is, our Savior, went to Jerusalem. Now, he was on his way to Jerusalem.
This was his earthly ministry beginning to close down, beginning
to end. Because he was going there to
accomplish the purpose of God and the salvation of his people,
his church, his sheep, God's elect on Calvary. And that process
was beginning. This is the beginning of the
end. The end not meaning just the final end of him, but his
victory. His victory on the cross and
his death, burial, and resurrection. So he went to Jerusalem, and
he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. That was the shortest route where
he was. A lot of people make a lot more
out of that, but it was the shortest route. Verse 12, and as he entered
into a certain village, there met with him ten men that were
lepers, which stood afar off. Now, as you know, leprosy in
the Old Testament and the New Testament is a definite picture. and type of our problem with
depravity and sin. Leprosy, as you know, is a disease
that started out small and it grew and it began to show itself
outwardly. Those lepers, you know, whenever
a man or a woman became a leper, they didn't send the person to
a doctor because it was useless. It was incurable. And that was
showing how our sin problem is incurable by any physician on
this earth. We can't cure that problem. We
cannot conquer our sin. It's like the Lord told Cain. He said, if you do well, you'll
be okay. Of course, doing well in that
context in Genesis chapter 4 is bringing the blood of the Lamb,
like Abel, pleading the righteousness of Christ and not your own. Then he said, but if you don't,
sin lieth at the door. And the picture there in the
original language is like a wild animal waiting outside your front
door. The moment you go out, it's going
to conquer you. It's going to make an end of
you. And that's what he's talking about. Well, the scripture says
in Daniel chapter 9, 24, that one of the things that Christ
would do in his work on Calvary was make an end of sin. And so that's what he did. He
made an end of sin so that sin wouldn't make an end of us, his
people. And this leprosy is a good picture
of sin. Now, a leper, that was a sentence
of death. The wages of sin is death. Leprosy
was a sentence of physical death. Inwardly and outwardly. And so
they didn't send him to a doctor, they sent him to the priest.
And the priest, all he could do was just pronounce that they
had leprosy and then cast them out among the people. They were outcasts. They had
to leave the population. And so that's a type here, but
this was an actual story. Now, this is an actual event
in history. This is not just a parable here. So he says, there
were ten men who were lepers. They stood afar off. They had
to. That was by law. They had no nearness to the people. And just like we in our sins
without Christ, we have no nearness to God. We have no nearness to
God's people. We're alienated, the scripture
says, and enemies in our minds by wicked works. Verse 13, they
lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on
us. Now, most people will recognize
that they're sinners. These men could not deny they
were lepers. They had the disease. It was
showing. And so even lost people will at times, and most of them,
they'll admit, well, we're sinners. I'm not perfect. But go on, he
says in verse 14, when he saw them, he said to them, go show
yourselves unto the priest. And it came to pass that as they
went, as they obeyed his command, they were cleansed. So a miracle
took place. Anytime, if a person was healed
of leprosy, that's the first thing they had to do is go show
themselves to the priest, and then the priest would pronounce
them clean, and they would be admitted back into society. So
these men, all ten, were cleansed of their leprosy. And in verse
15, it says, And one of them, when he saw that he was healed,
he turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God. Only one
out of ten. That's a sad commentary, isn't
it, on things? But look at it. He says, verse
16, He fell down on his face at Christ's feet, giving him
thanks. He glorified God. He gave him
thanks. And it adds here, and he was
a Samaritan. Now, the indication here is the
other nine were not Samaritans. But this fellow was. And you
know what the Jews thought of the Samaritans. They were half-breeds.
They were mixed-bloods. They were corrupted. You see, they didn't have the
pure blood of Abraham running through their veins. They weren't
of the right pedigree. They were the children of idolatry,
which they were. You know, Samaria was the capital
city of the Northern Kingdom in the Old Testament, and it
was known for its idolatry. They didn't have one godly king
of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And the Samaritans were mixed
blood. That's why Paul in Philippians
chapter 3, when he was testifying to how he used to brag on his
works and himself, as being recommended to God before he saw the glory
of Christ and saw his own simpleness, he said, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. And what he meant there is I'm
a pure-blooded Hebrew. I'm not of mixed blood. Don't
know how he knew that. Maybe he was just fooling himself,
you know. I mean, I dare to say there's probably none of us who
are purebred whatever, you know. We don't have our papers, in
other words, you know. But Paul thought that, and that
was one of his claims that made up his righteousness before God.
And then he saw Christ, and saw that he had no righteousness
before God. And when he saw the glory of
Christ in him crucified and risen again, and the righteousness
that he established by his works, his obedience unto death, Then
he saw, I count the fact that I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews to be
lost, even dumb, and everything else that I claim would recommend
me unto God, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which
is through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And so this leper
here is a type, a picture, a symbol of that kind of attitude. He
was cleansed of his leprosy, inside and outwardly. And so
what did he do? Well, he turned to give glory
to God. And then he gave him thanks.
And he was, in the eyes of men, one who didn't deserve salvation.
He was a Samaritan. He was one who didn't deserve
God's blessings. He was one that all men would
look at and say, he's a sinner. He deserves to go to hell. That's
the issue. The thing about it is that kind
of judgment only condemns the one who pronounces it. Because
what do we deserve based on our best efforts to obey God? We deserve nothing but hell and
damnation. That's why we need grace. Well,
verse 17 says, and Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Where
are the other nine that were cleansed physically of leprosy? He says in verse 18, there are
not found that return to give glory to God save this stranger.
Stranger means a foreigner. So that's what indicates, too,
that the other nine were Jews and not Samaritans. This foreigner
did it. This one whom men despise. And
he said unto him, verse 19, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made
thee whole. Thy faith hath made thee whole.
Now, as I said, this is an actual event that took place when our
Savior was on his way to Jerusalem to die on the cross for the sins
of his people, to be made sin, as the Scripture says, to have
our sins charged to his account, to take the full responsibility
in his experience as God-man in time and in history of what
we deserve, of what we earn from God, and that is death. Condemnation
in hell and he went through that and in doing that he died and
was buried and rose again the third day and That brought about
the cleansing of all his people here in this story here in this
event Ten were cleansed, but it says only one was made whole
Only one was made whole Only one turned to give glory to God
ten were cleansed physically and Ten were cleansed physically,
but only one was cleansed spiritually. You know, it's possible, and
there are many events in Scripture that teach us about men and women
being healed physically, but never coming to a saving knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, never being healed spiritually. And
that's the indication of this historical account. These ten
were cleansed physically. They had benefits from God physically,
temporally, just like the Jews in the Old Covenant. Just like
us today. You know, I tell our young people
up in Ashland all the time, I said, who determined that you'd be
born in the United States of America with all the benefits
and all the freedoms and all the opportunities that you have?
Why weren't you born in a third world country, cast out, starving
to death? Who determined that? Did God
come to you before you were born and say, now, where do you want
to be born? You want to be born in Atlanta, Georgia or Albany,
Georgia or Ashland, Kentucky? What did you choose? He didn't
do that. You were just born and you didn't
have anything to say about it. And you were born in a place
where I was born in a place where we had parents, we had opportunities. I dare say that we may get hungry,
but we've never gone hungry. And we have all the opportunities.
Who determined that? God did. Now what do we do with
those blessings? Do we turn and give glory to
God? Do we seek after the true and
living God? Do we beg for mercy because we
know that we don't even deserve these temporal blessings, let
alone eternal life and glory? Somebody said, well, I don't
deserve to be saved. You don't deserve anything from
God. None of us do. You look at somebody who is less
fortunate, as we say, than ourselves. Somebody who has a physical or
a mental handicap. And you've got your good strong
legs and two good arms and a brain that can think. At least sometimes
we've got a brain that can think. And what do we do? What do we
do? We walk around like we deserved it. We walk around like we earned
it. And we didn't. And here are these
ten men. There are ten of them here. None
of them deserved it. None of them did anything to
earn that blessing of physical healing. But only one turned
and gave glory to God and thanked Him. And he was a stranger. He
was one that even those who thought they deserved it, they'd say,
well, if anybody doesn't deserve it, it's him. And he's the one
who turned. That's the grace of God. That's
giving glory to God. Well, what is it to give glory
to God? Now, I've preached on this before here several times.
Preached growing up at Ashland. But I want to just, let's remind
ourselves of some things that we need to be reminded of. You
know, Psalms twice. Psalm 29 and Psalm 96. makes
this statement, give unto the Lord, that's Jehovah our Savior,
that's Yahweh Jehovah our Savior, which we see in the embodiment
of the person and work of Christ, give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Well, what is it to give glory
to God? Well, his name is that which identifies and distinguishes
him above everything else. Who he is, what he did, why he
did it, where he is now. We can't give glory unto his
name until we know his name. And the scripture says that his
name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins, Matthew 1.21. And it goes on to say, his name
shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with
us. The Bible says that in Christ,
the God-man dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That is, in the God-man, in Christ,
God incarnate, God in human flesh, we see the fullness of the Father. For you cannot know God as a
loving Father except through Christ and His work on Calvary. You can't know it. You see, without
Christ and His work on Calvary, God is not a loving Father. He's
a righteous judge who will justly and rightfully put you in hell.
How can God be both a righteous judge and a loving father? There's
not but one way, through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's by his
shed blood on Calvary and his righteousness that he established.
And the only way you're going to know the fullness of the Father
is through the Son. And then in Christ, God the Son
in human flesh, we know the fullness of the Son, the second person
of the Trinity who has no beginning and no end, the Alpha and the
Omega. He is the Son of God. And that makes him equal with
God. That's why he didn't think it was robbery for him to say,
to look at him and say, I am. It would be robbery if you or
I did that. Because we're not God. But He is God in human flesh. He's the fullness of the Son
of God. He's the Redeemer. He's the surety. He's the advocate who pleads
our cause because of the work that He finished on Calvary.
And so we say, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross
of Christ. And in doing so, what do we do?
We give glory unto His name. We don't boast except in anything,
but Christ in Him crucified. We don't have confidence in anything
of the flesh or what the flesh can do or accomplish or what
it is. Our confidence is in Christ Jesus and his accomplishment
to fulfill the law in its precept and penalty and all of its justice
and pay our debt in full on Calvary. We have no righteousness of our
own. We have Christ who is our righteousness and in admitting
that and believing it and meaning it, we give glory unto the name
of God. For Christ is Jehovah Sid Canoe, Jesus our Savior,
our righteousness. And therefore we look unto him
only. And then he is the fullness of
the Spirit. For what is the Spirit's work?
The Holy Spirit, who is the third person of the Trinity, equal
with the Father and the Son. His great work is to convict
us of our sins and drive us to Christ for salvation. And therefore
we give glory unto his name through the Son. Now, what is it to give
glory to God? Let me give you several things
here. Number one, and we'll think about this leper who turned and
gave glory to God. And somebody says, what does
it mean to give credit to God? Well, hold on. I'll say something
about that in a minute. Number one, to give glory to
God is to live and walk in the glory of His grace in Christ.
In other words, we live in grace. What does that mean? Turn to
1 Corinthians chapter 3. Now Paul here, in 1 Corinthians,
I think it's 1 Corinthians 3, let me, I told you I usually
type out my notes and sometimes I can't read my writing, so let's
get over here and look at it. Okay, 1 Corinthians 2 to start
off with, I'm sorry. 1 Corinthians 2. In other words,
we live and we walk in the glory of God's grace in Christ. And
to put it succinctly, it's this. I recognize that everything I
have, everything that I am, Everything that I possess that's good is
a gift, free, undeserved, unearned gift of God's grace in Christ.
I don't own anything. Listen, somebody says, well,
I own this. You don't own anything. And I'll
prove that to you because you're going to die. And who gets it
then? You were just a steward over
it, whether you were a poor steward or a good steward. But you just
had somebody like the two men that went to a rich man's funeral,
and one fellow asked the other, he said, how much did he leave?
And the guy looked at him and he said, well, he left it all.
He didn't take anything with him. He left it all. And that's
what you're going to do. And another proof of it is that
it doesn't matter where you live, how much you have, it's going
to burn up. In the end, isn't it? It's not
going to last. This earth fades away. Its glory
is the glory of a flower that has some point of a beauty for
a time, but then it's gone. I think, Melissa, you come in
and saw those two flowers on our table and said, boy, those
are poor excuses for flowers, because they were, you know.
That's the way they do. So this is the issue. Look at
verse 12. 1 Corinthians 2 is talking about how the natural
man doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God. What is
it he won't receive? He says, Now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. Now, the key there is freely
given. And secondly, do you know it?
Do you know the things that are freely given to you of God? You
say, well, I know everything I've got, give me a God. Do you
live and walk in the glory of that grace? I can't remember
which theologian it was years ago, but he talked about practical
atheism. What is practical atheism? Well,
you know what atheism is. That's a person who says there's
no God. All right. But there are people who are
practical atheists. In other words, they say there
is a God. They'll say, oh no, I'm not an
atheist. There is a God. There is God. But they live and
walk as if there is no God. You know you can do that? Just
walk through life, live your life, go about your daily business,
and never give glory to God, never give thanks to Him, never
worship Him, never get into His Word. That's practical atheism. You say there's a God, you know
there's a God, you know there's a judgment. But you live your
life as if there is no God. Oh, I'll think about that later.
That's practical atheism. And what I'm asking is, do we
know the things that are... I know that everything I have
is freely given to me of God, especially salvation. Say forgiveness of sins. How
does he forgive me of my sins? Is it something that I've done
to get it or earn it? No, it's by the blood of Christ.
He forgives me of all sin, cleanses me of all sin. Freely forgiven,
unconditionally, with no thought of the worthiness of the object,
because the object is unworthy. So if I have forgiveness and
I'm unworthy, then he couldn't have had me in mind and what
I deserve when he forgave me. It had to be the blood of his
son shed on the cross of Calvary. That I have right now a complete,
justified standing before a holy God. I stand complete before
God. That when God sees me at judgment,
He sees me with no sin, no deservedness of punishment. He cannot lay
anything to my charge. He cannot condemn me. Why? Why? Well, I remember that time you
joined the church. Or I remember that time you got
baptized. Or I remember that time that you gave money to the
poor. Is that what it is? No! He remembers his son hanging
on that cross, dying for my sins. establishing everlasting righteousness
for me, paying my debt in full. I often use the illustration,
and I'm sure you've heard me use it a lot over the years,
but when I want to teach the doctrine of imputation to young
people, And, you know, one thing that young people learn, I mean,
they may not be, they may not use a lot of wisdom in this area,
but they know the value of money and credit cards and all that.
And I've often said, you know, people today, they don't really
know anything about imputation, but if any generation in the
history of mankind ought to know something about imputation, it
ought to be this credit card generation. Don't you think? Because that's where credit,
you know, credit and debit, credit and debit. And I often use this
illustration to teach the doctrine of imputation. It's like this. If you got a letter from your
bank that you had a credit card that said that you have run it
up and you owe a million dollars to the bank. You owe a million
dollars. Now, I know you don't have that
kind of limits on your credit card, But just think about it
as an illustration. If you owed a million dollars
to your bank and we're wanting to collect, they say, and you
go and you find out that you don't have one red cent to put
against that debt. I mean, not even a penny. You
don't have anything, don't own anything. You're totally destitute
of any means or any way of paying that million dollars. They're
going to come and get you and put you in jail. There you are. And so you decide one day that,
well, the only thing I know to do is just go fall at the feet
of the president of that bank and beg for mercy. Of course,
you know how much good that would do. But you say, I'm going to
go fall at his feet. I'm just going to beg for mercy.
That's all I can do. So you go into the bank and you
say, I need to talk to the president. And you go in there and talk
to him and he looks at you and he says, now what's your name?
And you tell him. And he said, well, let's see
what it says here on the books. And he opens his books, his bank
books, his account books, and he looks at your name and he
says, wait a minute here. You don't owe a million dollars.
It's been paid. You say it's been paid. And he
says, yeah. Well, what happened? He said, well, somebody come
in here the other day and said, put it on my account. put her
dad or his dad on my account, I'll pay it in full." And it's
been paid. Boy, you'd think about what a
relief would come over you at that point in time. You're not
going to jail. The debt's paid. Talk about a
freedom. And as you turn around to leave,
the banker says, wait a minute. He said, now, let me check it
again, you know. And he says, there's your name. The debt's
paid. But you know what? You've got a million dollars
to the good. That fellow not only paid your million-dollar
debt, he gave you a million dollars to the good. You've got a million
dollars right here that's been credited to your account. Now,
I'm going to tell you the first thing you're going to want to
know after you get through jumping around and screaming. You're
going to, who is this fellow? I've got to know him. I've got
to thank him. I want to serve him. Whoever
he is, I love him. Because I didn't deserve it,
and I didn't earn it. And that's the way it is with
this amputation thing. You see, that's the grace of
God. He credited our sin debt, which we had nothing to pay to
Christ. He was made sin. And Christ paid
that sin debt with His very life, His blood. And in return, He
gave us a righteousness by which we can stand before God complete. Now how much are you going to
want to know Him and serve Him and thank Him? You see what I'm
saying? Now let me tell you something
now. That's real. That's a real deal. That is better than the
guy who would pay you out of a million dollar debt and give
you a million dollars to the good. Now maybe you can't imagine
that today, but it's better. It's better. What Christ did
on the cross in justifying us by His blood is a million times
better than the other. Now, what are you going to do?
Are you going to glorify Him? Are you going to worship Him?
Are you going to serve Him and His people? Love Him and His
people? That's what it is. Let me show you another thing.
To glorify God is to live and walk by faith in Christ. Turn back to that parable in
Luke 17. At the end of the parable, the
Lord said to the man, verse 19, it says, and he said unto him,
Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. Now a lot
of people misuse that kind of language. They'll take that and
they'll say, see there, if you have enough faith, then he'll
make you whole. That is not what that's teaching.
Now let me show you another passage. Turn to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew
chapter 9. And I want you to look at verse
27. Now, here's another historical event. Our Lord healing some
blind men. Look at verse 27. You see, the
issue, when He says, Thy faith hath made thee whole, the issue
there is not how much faith you have or how hard you believe
it, or your faith being a replacement for righteousness or goodness. But here's the issue. Now look
at verse 27. It says, And when Jesus departed thence, two blind
men followed him, crying and saying, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on us. They were acknowledging him to
be the Messiah there. And when he was come into the
house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus saith unto them,
Believe you that I am able to do this. Now, right there, you're
seeing the essence of faith. It's not how much you believe.
And, of course, we know faith is the gift of God. The Scripture
says that. For by grace have you been saved
through faith. That's not of yourself. It's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The issue is, do you believe
that Christ is able? He didn't say, well, if you believe
it hard enough, it'll happen to you. Or if you believe it
long enough. You're going to be healed. You're
going to see. No, he said, you believe I am able. That's the
essence. You see, it's not the faith itself.
It's the object of faith. And they said unto him, yea,
Lord, I believe you're able. It's like that one leper that
came to him and said, Lord, if thou will, thou canst make me
clean. If God's willing and able, he
can make me clean. If God's willing and able, he
can save me. And he says, Then touched he
their eyes, and saying, According to your faith, be it unto you.
What was their faith? In Christ who is able. Paul said
it this way in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 9, For I know whom I
have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day. He is able
to save to the uttermost. The issue of faith is not how
much faith you have. Your faith is imperfect. My faith
is imperfect. But Christ is able, and He's
not imperfect. And He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. So do we live and walk by faith
in Christ? Do we honor Him, exalt Him, glorify
Him, follow Him in all that He tells us in His Word? You can't
love Christ and believe in Him without loving and believing
in His Word. That's right. That's what it is to glorify
God. It's to walk by faith in Christ. Resting in His blood
for the forgiveness of all my sins. Resting in His righteousness
alone as my complete standing before God. Nothing added, nothing
taken away. For He is my hope. He is my stay. And then thirdly, it's walking
and living in the love of God. Hearing His love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. But next it says here that this
man thanked Him. Remember back in Luke 17. He gave glory to God and it says
he gave Him thanks, gratitude. You know, those are the motives.
for right obedience. Grace, faith, love, gratitude. Back in the Old Testament, they
had atonement offerings. And those atonement offerings
were pictures of the blood of Christ, the blood of the Lamb,
for the removal of sin. But they also, as a result and
fruit of those atonement offerings, they had thank offerings. How
do we thank God? by looking up in the sky and
saying, ìThank you, Lord.î No. Gratitude and love, being grateful. We thank Him by our love to Him,
by our worship of Him and to His people. The psalmist said
in Psalm 116 and verse 17, ìI will offer unto thee the sacrifice
of thanksgiving.î Itís a sacrifice. Itís a denying of ourselves,
a denying of our wants and coming to our needs. It's the glory
of God. It's thanking Him with our words,
our thoughts, our deeds. Not to be saved, for we're living
and walking in the grace of God by faith in Christ. In love to
Him. But in gratitude. Gratitude to
God. Not walking as a practical atheist. Saying we believe Christ. You
know, it's like one fellow up in North Carolina, you know,
he would come to church about once every five years, and he
told the pastor, he said, boy, I just love the Word of God.
And the pastor said, well, you don't love it enough. Think about
it now. Don't walk as a practical atheist. Don't claim to love Christ and
not love Him and not be grateful, not express thanksgiving. And
then let me conclude with this. In this thing of the glory of
God, You know, turn over to Matthew chapter 5, verse 16. He says, Let your light
so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father, which is in heaven. What that means, now a lot of
people say, well, that's our witness, and it is, but the light
that we're to let shine is not our good works. You see, good
works are the fruit of grace. Christ said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches, you'll bear fruit. We're not fruit producers, we're
fruit bearers. The life is in the vine, the
life is in Christ. The light is not the good works,
the light is the gospel of Christ. which shows men that we're not
depending on our works to get us into heaven, or to earn our
ways, our blessings before God, but the good works are the fruit
of His glory and His grace. Look at it, and glorify your
Father, which is in heaven. We want everything we do and
say to glorify our Father in heaven through Christ, not to
bring attention to ourselves. And somebody said, well, if you
just give credit to God, that's enough. Over in Matthew chapter
7, there were some men who gave credit to God. They stood before
Him. They said, Lord, Lord, haven't
we preached in Your name? Haven't we prophesied in Your
name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? And He said, depart from Me, I never knew you, you that
worketh iniquity. They gave credit to God for the
things that they did. You see, God doesn't want – that's
not our righteousness before God. Christ is. Just like that Pharisee standing
outside the temple in Luke 18, verse 10, he said, I thank God
I'm not like other men. If that's what you're pleading
as your righteousness before God, giving God credit for that
is going to end you up in damnation. You see, we want men to glorify
our Father which is in heaven through Christ. We want men and
women to know that our salvation is by grace something we didn't
deserve and don't earn, something that God freely gives us out
of his sovereign mercy and love. And that's our issue. And the
only way they're going to know that is to witness the gospel.
the good news of how God saves sinners through Christ. Let's pray and then we'll conclude.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessings of your word
and your grace. We thank you, dear Lord, for
giving us the grace of Christ, the blood of Christ, the righteousness
of Christ, for giving us the Holy Spirit to convict us of
our sins and lead us to Christ for our whole salvation. We thank
you for your word. We thank you for the fellowship
that you've brought us into and pray that we would be ever aware
by the power of your spirit and your word that we ought to be
giving glory unto the name of Christ. For in his name we pray.
Amen.